Skill versus production

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I honestly figured I would take 3 to 3-1/2 hours on the whole thing. He spent 14 hours.

I figured it would take me an hour. It took him 3 hours.

I had one guy spend a day and a half running 4/0 SER-g across a 3-car garage and down to basement on a new home rough-in. Day and a half. And he was struggling to get it stubbed outside, so I had to do that.

The guy I have now, I've told him at least 10 times in 3 days that it's shocking how slow he is. He literally takes 3-4 times longer on everything
It sounds to me like he should be your helper and watch you work for a couple of hours or days.

When we're working, we don't ask ourselves what step is next, or whether it's "good enough."

My son is an excellent helper, but he readily admits I'm much faster, because of my experience.

I bet none of us worked as as fast as we can now, even if the work was slightly neater back then.
 
It sounds to me like he should be your helper and watch you work for a couple of hours or days.

Yeah. Also One thing I have done that helps is watch the guy work. I know it makes him nervous being on the spot and having me just watching him but I can find out things that he's being way too anal about - which was just about everything at first. Also I have spotted big inefficiencies, like making up a box, he would change his tools for every wire set, rather than doing all the stripping first then moving on to the next tool such as linesman's if the next step was pre-twisting.
 
Today I switched up.
I had another subpanel to add for 6 circuits (kitchenette and bathroom in a basement)
Same exact scenario as the other day.
Panel in stud wall, subpanel in next bay.
All materials exactly the same as the other day.

I had him plug and switch everything, and swap all the can trims - all existing ceilings with 14 cans total.

After getting all his materials, I started on the panel at 8:45

At 9:15 I had the panel in the wall with nipple through, and realized one of my bushings was the wrong size. And I didn't have any more. So I needed to go to Home Depot to get one. Needed a few more things, too. So I installed my feed wires and landed them in the subpanel, which put me at a stopping point at 10:15

I went to check on him, and he was done with almost all the devices (about 20) and half the can trims. A bit faster than the other day.

So I asked him if he wanted to take a break and go to Home Depot with me. It was 10:30 when we left. We got lunch while we were out. Got back at 12:30

I finished up the subpanel feed, and moved the circuits from the main panel to make room for the 100 amp breaker. Wrapped up the whole thing at 2:05

5-1/2 hours including a 2 hour parts/lunch trip.
He took 14 hours on the one he did. I just wanted to make sure that my 3-1/2 hours estimate was accurate.

I didn't mention it to him.
He had almost all the work done in the finished areas, so I reworked a temp wire to a keyless.

We got wrapped up and cleaned up at 3:00
Still later than I had projected, but faster than the last few days.

I think some patience is in order.
I was just starting to freak out, thinking how I'm paying more than I'm charging 😬
 
Also I have spotted big inefficiencies, like making up a box, he would change his tools for every wire set, rather than doing all the stripping first then moving on to the next tool such as linesman's if the next step was pre-twisting.
You should watch me make up a panel. :oops:
 
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I think some patience is in order.
I was just starting to freak out, thinking how I'm paying more than I'm charging 😬
Nearly all my work is T&M, but I am the type of person who feels an obligation to be considerate of the client's money. As such I feel my help needs to be competent and appropriately compensated. So it's still is large on my mind and stresses me out a lot even though his potential lack of productivity doesn't come out of my pocket.
 
Just talked to my guy who had to do a few corrections yesterday at a house we roughed in. I am again very disappointed. Here is what he has to do:

1. 2 runs of 14-3 for mini split heads,. Compressor and heads All on same wall pretty much vertically stacked, compressor in basement, one head on first floor another head on second floor.

2. Add two wall outlets in kitchen, coming off of already wired sabc circuits.

3. Poke out wire for exterior outlet on "porch" (it's hardly a porch, really just stairs, it's a bogus call). Feed from another exterior outlet about 15 ft away.

4. Install two gang box for range cable, range cable already ran.

5. Run doorbell wire to front and back door

6. Install two flex conduits down to sole plate for floor heat from already installed four square box.

How long would you say this would take? I would think 4 hours is plenty of time. My guy said he had 8 hours yesterday, and that's AFTER already taking some time off for what he felt was poor productivity.... AND he didn't get the doorbell wire ran, but said he drilled some holes for it,. And he didn't finish the floor heat conduits. One thing he really struggled with was the hole for poking out the mini split wires on the exterior. He said it took him about an hour and a half to drill that hole. Okay so it was metal siding and there happened to be a stud pretty much right where we needed to come through. So drill your hole with your hole saw just enough to get enough of a hole for the Romex connector, then take the auger and drill through at an angle. Done. Well he made an art project out of it, I guess he hit a nail and was on the inside trying to excavate the nail to remove it...... I just don't know if this is going to work out, he really struggles with nearly everything. I'm having a real hard time with this ethically. I bill him out at $10 an hour more than what I charge him at and I am considering dropping that because of his incredibly poor productivity.
 
I've had several talks with my guy.

Day before yesterday, we started a nearly whole house remodel - kitchen moves and doubles in size, great room gets new architectural ceiling and new, larger fireplace, master bath gutted and reconfigured, laundry moving across the house, bonus room and bath added above the 3-car garage, dual head mini split for bonus and garage, hot tub, 100 amp subpanel in bonus room, 100 amp subpanel between hot tub and mini split.

We didn't do the demo, so there are some unknown wires hanging throughout - like 25 of them

He's been wiring since 1984 and seemed overwhelmed with the scope 🤔🙄
So I figured bite-sized chunks are best.

Fireplace was first on the list.
The entire area is gutted down to studs.
90s-era house which already had previous remodel.

There was a 14/2 coming through the floor, not long enough to reach anything.

In the fireplace "nook" were 2 receptacle boxes in a 14/2 circuit running from a 2-gang switch box on the left side of fp, to a receptacle on the right side of fp. So that whole cable needs to come out and get replaced without receps in the fp opening.

The cable coming through the floor needs to be extended with an "in wall" splice kit and feed a switch for fp, then 14/3 from sw to fp.

I thought 1-1/2 to 2 hrs.
t took him 7 hours.
I like the guy, but this seems to mark his day, every day. I'm paying him $30 per hour, which is fair around these parts. But most days I'm paying him more than I'm charging because he's so slow
 
I've had several talks with my guy.

Day before yesterday, we started a nearly whole house remodel - kitchen moves and doubles in size, great room gets new architectural ceiling and new, larger fireplace, master bath gutted and reconfigured, laundry moving across the house, bonus room and bath added above the 3-car garage, dual head mini split for bonus and garage, hot tub, 100 amp subpanel in bonus room, 100 amp subpanel between hot tub and mini split.

We didn't do the demo, so there are some unknown wires hanging throughout - like 25 of them

He's been wiring since 1984 and seemed overwhelmed with the scope 🤔🙄
So I figured bite-sized chunks are best.

Fireplace was first on the list.
The entire area is gutted down to studs.
90s-era house which already had previous remodel.

There was a 14/2 coming through the floor, not long enough to reach anything.

In the fireplace "nook" were 2 receptacle boxes in a 14/2 circuit running from a 2-gang switch box on the left side of fp, to a receptacle on the right side of fp. So that whole cable needs to come out and get replaced without receps in the fp opening.

The cable coming through the floor needs to be extended with an "in wall" splice kit and feed a switch for fp, then 14/3 from sw to fp.

I thought 1-1/2 to 2 hrs.
t took him 7 hours.
I like the guy, but this seems to mark his day, every day. I'm paying him $30 per hour, which is fair around these parts. But most days I'm paying him more than I'm charging because he's so slow
I hear ya. My guy is way overpaid. I pay him $45. It's really my mistake. I think I said this earlier in this thread but I have pretty much always worked alone and I am apparently quite naive about how good I am, and how unproductive newbies are. He has dabbled in electrical work for years so I did think he would be above the level of a newbie. When he first started working for me that's what he said his rate was when he did electric work for friends and it seemed reasonable to me so I said okay I can pay you that. He is a member of the LLC and gets paid by a draw in responsible for all his own stuff so I do not incur any expenses on top of his rate, but I figured I should make some money for the hassle and that $10 on top of that was reasonable. But now I see he is probably worth really a completely new apprentice rate like 25 an hour and here I am billing him at 55. Not sure what to do. On one hand, my main client loves him and is almost certainly naive about the productivity issue so I could just let it ride. That is what a good business person would do probably, but I do have ethics as well.
 
Experience and skill is worthless if it cant be made productive. As long as the productive and unskilled guy is capable of handling constant constructive criticism without quitting (big problem) that's the guy I want to invest in. There is an integrity to skill and that should be an obvious hard line expectation but true skill is always a net positive on the bottom line. If a 30 year vet is not a net positive for the company (on every task) then what's the point? Maybe adjust his role to quality assurance or training to compensate his weak points. There's a win-win somewhere if he is a hard worker. Piece rate works great to bring their attention to productivity.
 
I hear ya. My guy is way overpaid. I pay him $45. It's really my mistake.
I'd like to pay a guy $45 per hour.
I charge enough that I have it for a skilled, productive guy.
But I'm gun shy. I've seen too many clowns.

This guy told me $30 is his absolute lowest.
I said let's try it out.
After his first day (last Friday), on which I told him no less than 6 times that he was taking entirely too long on a subpanel, I sent him $240 through PayPal.

His response was "oh, it's only $30 per hour?"

I was like....uhh, yeah. As freaking slow as you were today, yeah. You want more, you produce more.

$30 is a raw deal for me.

Compared to a productive $45 guy, my guy is worth about $12
 
I've always thought that an hourly employee is getting paid to work as slowly as he can get away with.

Is there a legal way to pay an employee by the task?
 
I've always thought that an hourly employee is getting paid to work as slowly as he can get away with.

Is there a legal way to pay an employee by the task?
I tried paying a guy piece work one time, and he bounced around the whole house trying to do only those things that he thought was going to pay him the most money. It was a total disaster

If it was a complete job, peace work would be fine. But trying to have two or more guys sharing a piecework rough-in or finish oh, I can't see that working well
 
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